3 ms·

My Motherland: Finding–and writing–the worlds where only I had been

9 points by benbreen 10y ago

benbreen 10y ago
"I remember when this idea came: in our small co-op dorm at Radcliffe, Everett House, in the dining room, where you could study and typewrite late without disturbing sleepers. I was twenty years old, working at one of the dining tables about midnight, when I got the first glimpse of my other country. An unimportant country of middle Europe. One of those Hitler had trashed and Stalin was now trashing. (The Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1947–48 had been the first event to rouse the political spirit in me.) A land not too far from Czechoslovakia, or Poland, but let’s not worry about borders. Not one of the partly Islamized nations—more Western-oriented…. Like Rumania, maybe, with a Slavic-influenced but Latin-descended language? Aha! I begin to feel I’m coming close. I begin to hear the names. Orsenya—in Latin and English, Orsinia. I see the river, the Molsen, running through an open, sunny countryside to the old capital, Krasnoy (krasniy, Slavic, “beautiful”). Krasnoy on its three hills: the Palace, the University, the Cathedral. The Cathedral of St Theodora, an egregiously unsaintly saint, my mother’s name…. I begin to find my way about, to feel myself at home, here in Orsenya, matrya miya, my motherland. I can live here, and find out who else lives here and what they do, and tell stories about it. And so I did." I really like this piece of writing (apparently it's an excerpt from Ursula K. Le Guin's introduction to a new edition of her unpublished first novel). Reminds me of all the time I spent making up imaginary places, ostensibly for a D&D campaign that never came to fruition and turned out to be more about making impossibly elaborate maps of imaginary empires. Unlike Le Guin who was obviously very driven and productive, they never resulted in anything. But on the other hand, at some level I think I became a professional historian because of those maps.

9 points by benbreen 10y ago

"I remember when this idea came: in our small co-op dorm at Radcliffe, Everett House, in the dining room, where you could study and typewrite late without disturbing sleepers. I was twenty years old, working at one of the dining tables about midnight, when I got the first glimpse of my other country. An unimportant country of middle Europe. One of those Hitler had trashed and Stalin was now trashing. (The Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1947–48 had been the first event to rouse the political spirit in me.) A land not too far from Czechoslovakia, or Poland, but let’s not worry about borders. Not one of the partly Islamized nations—more Western-oriented…. Like Rumania, maybe, with a Slavic-influenced but Latin-descended language? Aha! I begin to feel I’m coming close. I begin to hear the names. Orsenya—in Latin and English, Orsinia. I see the river, the Molsen, running through an open, sunny countryside to the old capital, Krasnoy (krasniy, Slavic, “beautiful”). Krasnoy on its three hills: the Palace, the University, the Cathedral. The Cathedral of St Theodora, an egregiously unsaintly saint, my mother’s name…. I begin to find my way about, to feel myself at home, here in Orsenya, matrya miya, my motherland. I can live here, and find out who else lives here and what they do, and tell stories about it. And so I did." I really like this piece of writing (apparently it's an excerpt from Ursula K. Le Guin's introduction to a new edition of her unpublished first novel). Reminds me of all the time I spent making up imaginary places, ostensibly for a D&D campaign that never came to fruition and turned out to be more about making impossibly elaborate maps of imaginary empires. Unlike Le Guin who was obviously very driven and productive, they never resulted in anything. But on the other hand, at some level I think I became a professional historian because of those maps.